Magic show for kids at MACS

A few minutes before the show started, about half the kids had already sat down in front of my table.

Last year I did a 30 minute magic show at the English conversation school MACS, followed by about 30 minutes of teaching the kids two simple card tricks. I was asked to repeat it this year too, so I had to come up with 30 minutes of new material (which was a bit difficult). I have new material since last year, but most of my work is close up magic not suitable for showing to around 30 kids at once. And most of my material is aimed at people coming to our magic bar, which means some of it is not appropriate for kids...

去年、英会話スクールMACSで30分のマジックショーと30分の簡単なマジックを子供に教えるイベントをやった。今年も依頼が来た。30分の新しいネタを考えないと行けないことで、ちょっと大変だった、笑。新しいネタは色々あるが普段クローズアップをやっているので、皆に見せるネタがそんなにない。普段酔っ払いに見せているから、子供に見せられないネタも多いし…

There was even a sign on the toilet with information about my show.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and the kids seemed to enjoy it too. The only thing is that after the show, lots of kids (and some parents!) come up and start grabbing all my stuff. Some things can break easily, and are expensive to buy, so even if you did not care about giving the secrets of magic away, that would also be a huge concern. This time, one foldable box was kind of broken by one of the parents, despite having been put into one of my bags... I could fix it later with no problems, but still... Some of the secrets of the tricks were discovered by some kids since there were too many of them, and only one of me trying to stop them from grabbing at everything.

結局、楽しかった。子供たちも喜んでくれたみたい。ちょっとだけ嫌なことがあって、ショーの後、子供も（親も！）道具を触ってくるんだ。壊れやすいもので値段が高い道具色々あるから、タネ気にしなくても触って欲しくない（タネ知らない方がいいと思うし）。今回、折りたたみの箱が親にちょっと壊された。バッグに入れてあったのに！その後簡単に直せたからそんなに問題なかったが…色々なマジックのタネもばればれになった。子供が多すぎて、1人で同時に全部とめることが出来なかった、笑。

Since the show took place at an English conversation school, they had some English expressions related to magic on the notice board.

This is something that some of my other magician friends also have happen to them. No one seems to know why people find it OK to grab a magician's tools, while the same people would probably not pick up a guitar after a concert and start fiddling with it. I am still not sure exactly how to deal with this when it comes to some performance situations. When putting things on a table, people often grab at them (when standing behind the bar counter, I no longer have problems). When the audience is too close to my table at parlor magic, sometimes they come up and start touching stuff afterwards (when on a stage very separate from the audience area, this is never a problem). Maybe I can start putting up "Do not enter!" plastic tape around a small area around my performance area?

マジシャン友達の中で同じ経験の人が多い。何でマジシャンの道具を勝手に触っても大丈夫だと思われているか、誰も分からない。例えば、コンサートに行って、コンサートの後バンドのギターとかを勝手に触ってちょっとひいてみる人がいないよね？僕はまだどうすればいいか分からない時がある。クローズアップで、テーブルの上に置いたものがたまに触られる（カウンターでマジックをやると特にない）。お客さんと僕のパフォーマンスエリアが近いとショーの後で触って来る人が結構多い（ステージがお客さんのいるところとだいぶ違う雰囲気があれば、特に問題ないけど）。次回、「立入禁止」のテープを持って行って、ステージエリアの周りに付けてみようかな？（笑）

The kids also got popcorn at the event, so there was some cleaning of the floors necessary afterwards. They used a very old Swedish vacuum cleaner.

Anyway, I don't minds so much with kids, as long as they do not break anything (and that rarely happens). From grownups, I would expect more common sense, though. And to be fair, most grownups manage to restrain themselves and do not touch my stuff without asking.


まぁ、子供なら大した構わないけど。道具を壊さなかったら。大人なら、もうちょっと常識というか空気を読んで欲しいけどね。ちゃんとした人間で、勝手に触らない大人が多いけどね。